Google Updates and SERP Changes - May 2018

[Shaddows]

System: The following message was cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4894234.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 11:34 am on May 1, 2018 (PDT -8)

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We've seen a huge shift in traffic patterns today. Traffic and conversions are relatively stable, but destination pages are very different.

In terms of products sold, it is very similar to the pre-March profile (which is different to the various iterations over the last 6 weeks)

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 7:51 pm (utc) on May 1, 2018]
[edit reason] Split to new thread. [/edit]

[NetTox]

After our great recovery 3 weeks ago, we saw a slight lull last week. This morning is through the roof with very high traffic and conversions. Very happy this month.

[heisje]

We're not seeing the quality results reported here.

Other than with "simplistic" search terms, it is a total mess.

.

[samwest]

@bushy - I run my own sites and manage nearly 100 for clients. This gives me a very unique view of M&P sites that range in traffic from a few dozen visits per day to 50,000 per day. I'm a pattern watcher and I see wavelike patterns that sweep all my sites, BTW - these are on diverse hosting solutions, not one or two boxes. This is why I put more credence in overall network performance / control than SERP manipulation, but I'm sure it's a bit of both as well as trends and general human behavior murmurations. [wonderopolis.org...]

[BushyTop]

@Sam I was just interested to know whether your clients had applied any pressure or whether you thought you may lose work?!?

[samwest]

@bushy - no, but it's become a terrible challenge to retain happy clients in this environment, especially when many clients still have the false idea that placing a website on a domain means they will automatically get a big piece of the "internet super highway".

[whoa182]

Things are looking stable now. Anyone else seeing the same?

Despite losing many of my main keywords, they all came back after a few days and I have record levels of traffic on my site. So I actually came out of this better than before the update. :)

[BushyTop]

@whoa unfortunately this is an update we haven't come out of so well. After the huge gains we saw in march, we've lost about 20% of those. So despite a net gain, I cant help feeling disappointed.

[Askstech]

There has been a fluctuation in the search ranking for my website on a given keyword. But now the previous ranking has been retrieved. However, the length of the meta description is showing to be 160 character. At first, the character limit was 160 and afterwards, the character limit was increase to 320. Now, the character limit has been decreased to 160 character once again. So, please let me know if this change is permanent or temporary and what should be the perfect meta description length?

Should I decrease the meta description length for all my web pages?

[QuaterPan]

So, please let me know if this change is permanent or temporary

There is no answer, to this kind of question. Google can adapt its SERP whenever they want, and how often they want. So it's not because they are playing with the length of the meta description, that it means it will stick like that or not.

and what should be the perfect meta description length?

The one describing the page adequately, this is eventually humans which are minding what the meta description says, not Google.

[glakes]

@thepointer, Cralamarre and MayankParmar

It would appear your suspicions that Yoast was responsible for allowing many pages to be added to Google's index has been confirmed.

"In our major Yoast SEO 7.0 update, there was a bug concerning attachment URL’s. We quickly resolved the bug, but some people have suffered anyhow (because they updated before our patch). This post serves both as a warning and an apology. We want to ask all of you to check whether your settings for the redirect of the attachment URL’s are correct. And, for those of you who suffered from a decrease in rankings because of incorrect settings, we offer a solution that Google has OKed as well."

See: [yoast.com...]

[Rlilly]

With shopping ads as images, images, interesting finds, videos.. Google looks like a magazine.. it is no longer search..

[Nutterum]

Anything shake-up since 27 onwards? I got good buff for a huge range of keywords over a few completely unrelated business niches I am invested in. Either I did something terribly right or some quality update reached my corner of the internet. 1400 keywords ~35% of which are money keywords all got bumped by 0.7 positions resulting in almost 2% more CTR and 6% more impressions. This is big as we are talking of hundreds of thousands of impressions per week.

[Shaddows]

With shopping ads as images, images, interesting finds, videos.. Google looks like a magazine.. it is no longer search.

That's a fair observation.

Google is as a car to a Search Engine's horseless carriage. It fundamentally performs the same task as the old tech, but operates on an entirely different basis, with entirely different aims.

Sadly for webmasters, no one is going to bring back the horseless carriage, as the passengers seem to prefer the cars.

We're like the road-builders- constantly expected to improve our product to satisfy the passengers, with the cars taking a different route at their whim.

To stretch the analogy, Amazon is like the Motorway (Interstate Highway), which the cars seem to use for every journey, despite our much better scenery, cheaper service stations, variation, and specificity.

[MrSavage]

The chaos being reported is "working as designed". Maybe by 2020 there will be a realization from the webmaster community as a whole that Google at best considers SERPS to be filler. Up, down, here, there, whatever. This is minutia. If the results suck (and yes I can confirm that they do suck many times) it hasn't affected their stock prices (actually it's gone up so they will continue the behavior) and nobody (myself included) has gone to Bing 24/7. But to report on the SERPS and complain because it's a mess or here one day gone then next? Stop reporting like it's broken. People are expecting some consistency on the SERPS or trying to sell clients on some consistent results? Seriously? I get people need somewhere to vent or overstate their observations but this is senseless fodder. It's the same, all day, every day. We need to report this minutia still even in 2018?

[Rlilly]

"working as designed" - I think you mean "defective by design"

[Shaddows]

Google doesn't think of SERPs as filler. What they use it for is a high-grade test bed for their other research projects- natural language processing, machine learning, IR / IA, all the good stuff that they then sell as a developed product to other companies.

However, as little as Google cares about the content of SERPs in and of itself, they do need to maintain a minimum standard to keep the data flowing in.

And they are applying their gained knowledge back in to SERPs to develop further.

So yes, churn is intended, to aid data collection. But there is still method to the madness, winning is possible, and losing is not personal.

[lostshootingstar]

MrSavage, I think maybe a thread titled "Google Updates and SERP changes" might not be a good thread for you to follow if you are sick of people talking about updates and changes.

[NetTox]

Things seem to be pretty settled here with my sites. Happy to report all sites have had a positive result. We had an old site that used to rule in selling a widget that fell during Panda 2011 and I neglected the site since it took the hit. Suddenly this last week and a half that site ranks #1-3 in results for the same keywords it did before Panda 2011.

[MayankParmar]

Important update for WordPressers. If you use Yoast and lost search ranking, a bug may be to blame -> [yoast.com...] (apology and Google approved workaround).

[QuaterPan]

Important update for WordPressers. If you use Yoast and lost search ranking, a bug may be to blame -> [yoast.com...] (apology and Google approved workaround).

This is the problem of using third-part tools / codes / plugins / CMS, this expose you to bugs which are not even your fault. This is important to have a control of the production line from A to Z.

[Cralamarre]

I saw the number of indexed pages increase, but it doesn't look like I suffered for it in the rankings. However, my trust in Yoast has definitely suffered because of this mistake.

[MrSavage]

@shootingstar - Oh, actually it's comic relief for me. No offense intended of course.

[samwest]

I'm glad someone finds all this funny.

[MrSavage]

Zombie talk isn't funny? "Today my traffic is up, which is better than the last three days, let's see what tomorrow brings"? Personally I never get sick of zombies vs. imagination vs. human vs. life's great mysteries. It's all quite fascinating and entertaining. Productive? Not so much.

[whoa182]

That Yoast update was a separate issue for me. I noticed months ago that my images were ranking instead of my content, so I figured it out and did that switch in yoast settings. It took a while to correct, but things resolved on its own after a few weeks.

Fetching the post in search console sometimes helped.

[mosxu]

@EG

Your opinion is required

[searchenginejournal.com...]

[Shaddows]

@mosxu
Deliberately creating "in groups" and "others" is not helpful on professional forums. Most of your posts seem to include snide attacks on anyone who does not bash google hard enough.

However, that link:
Google’s New Algorithm Creates Original Articles From Your Content [searchenginejournal.com]
I agree with Martinibuster:

That means Google is able to use many webpages to generate “coherent” and “informative” articles. This is a rather disturbing turn of events.

See also [webmasterworld.com...]

[EditorialGuy]

@mosxu: As Shaddows pointed out, we already have a thread on that topic. It pays to check the thread listings on Webmaster World's home page now and then. (You never know what you might have missed in other WW forums.)

[samwest]

and discussion once again deteriorates to pointless pa mocking and scolding - mods must still be out on vacation

[Shaddows]

That's fantastically meta, scolding for scolds :)